Major innovators of the world of computer science such as Apple and Microsoft had a little help. Steve Jobs believed that experimenting with LSD in the 1960s was “one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life.” Gates admitted to tasting LSD while he was under the age of 25. Story goes that Gates was staring at a table and thinking the corner was going to plunge into his eye.

Historical visionaries who indulged were:

Sigmund Freud, Cocaine.   He was a huge advocate of the wonder drug for many years.

Thomas Edison, Cocaine Elixirs. The prolific inventor and notorious insomniac regularly consumed “Vin Mariana”, a cocaine-laced elixir.

Paul Erdos, Amphetamines. Erdos was one of the most prolific mathematicians who every lives and had a habit of working 19-hour days into his old age.

Carl Sagan, Marijuana.  Sagan was a strong advocate of marijuana for use in enchancing intellectual pursuits.

Source: Salon, “These Intellectual Luminaries Indulged” by Robert T. Gonzalez (Aug. 16, 2013)

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Angry Debutant posted an insightful comment on Whygirl.com about the post “Why Do Men (BoysLeave?

Here’s the comment:

A man’s “manual” is a simple one. Keep it short, to the point and get out. No Kleenex required. Do we women need our own manual? Or should we just stop spending our time wondering/wishing/thinking/crying when we can just rip a page from their manual and have done with it. The only downside would be if one had stock in Kimberly-Clark.

Hurrah.

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Surprisingly, “Sunflowers” were intended to impress the artist Gauguin and was a gesture of friendship, but the alliance was to end in disaster.

Why sunflowers?

Sunflowers had a special significance for Van Gogh. He made seven versions of them.

Yellow, for him, was an emblem of happiness – in Dutch literature, the sunflower was a symbol of devotion and loyalty. In their various stages of decay, these flowers also remind us of the cycle of life and death.

Van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1888

Symbols of happiness

The “Sunflowers” is one of the most popular paintings in the National Gallery. It is the painting that is most often reproduced on cards, posters, mugs, tea-towels and stationery. It was also the picture that Van Gogh was most proud of.

It was painted during a rare period of excited optimism, while Van Gogh awaited the arrival of his hero, the avant-garde painter Paul Gauguin.

The lonely and passionate Vincent had moved to Arles, in the South of France, where he dreamed of setting up a community of artists with Gauguin as its mentor.

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There are those who say, “inspiration” is required to clear a creative block. That may be true. But how do you get it? Being at the crisis point, deadlines, the blank page, no thoughts; many significant authors found a solution with a taste for “spirits” and/or drugs to grease the imagination and stir creative juices.

Alcohol:

Ian Fleming, Vesper Martini

Oscar Wilde, Iced Champagne

Stephen King, Beer

Truman Capote, Screwdrivers

Jean Stafford, Wine

Dorothy Parker, Whiskey Sour

William Faulkner, Mint Juleps

Scott Fitzgerald, Gin

Jack Kerouac, Margaritas

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Rum Sidecars

Edgar Allan Poe, Cognac

Ernest Hemingway, Mimosas

Maya Angelou, Whiskey

Drugs

Carlos Castaneda, peyote

Tennessee Williams, amphetamines, barbiturates

Timothy Leary, LSD

Aldous Huxley, mescaline

Aleister Crowley, cocaine, heroin, opium

Nick Bantock, opium

Jack Kerouac, marijuana, Benzedrine

Sylvia Plath, pharmaceuticals

Stephen King, cocaine

George Carlin, Vicodin

Allen Ginsberg, marijuana

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, morphine, laudanum

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, opium

John Keats, opium

William S. Burroughs, heroin

Philip K. Dick, amphetamine, crystal meth

Jean Cocteau, Opium

Ken Kesey, LSD, mescaline, marijuana

But for writers seeking a non-alcohol, non-drug approach, consider these options:

Lift your nose from the page and give yourself a change of scenery.

Take a couple of hours to explore a different landscape, ideally a locale beyond city limits.

If you live by the Ocean or any other vast body of water, GO

and feel the waves wash over body and soul.

Make a point of talking to strangers and fresh faces.

Ask WHY? And see what flows. Let the words spill out and flow in any direction.

Say “Good Morning” and mean it.

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